Advanced Darkroom Workshop Series

This series of workshops provides the diagnostic and practical skills required to tailor your black and white shooting and development practice to your personal artistic intention.

Building on a strong foundation from our foundation classes, Go Retro and Stay Retro, you'll learn how to print faster and more accurately, adjust your personal exposure practice to suit your own intentions, and adjust your developing routines for less dodging and burning and more consistent results across lighting conditions.

Please note that while the Second and Third workshops can be taken independently of one another, both require the first workshop as a hard prerequisite. If you have a scheduling conflict with the first, but would like to make one (or both) of the latter workshops, please contact the instructor.

For this series of workshops participants will need;

A 35mm camera of their choice, with lens and lens cap.

A light meter, if their camera does not have one built in.

At least 6 rolls of the 35mm black and white film of their choosing.

At least 25 sheets of 8x10 black and white photographic paper of their choosing.

________________________________________________________

Scientific Darkroom Proofs

Learn to proof your film like a scientist! Discover how this simple darkroom technique can be used to evaluate; Film exposure, film development, print times.

This tool provides the foundation for further advancing your black and white darkroom skillset. In this workshop you'll learn the diagnostic skillset you need to gauge how easily a set of negatives will print, and determine good starting print exposures for each frame.

We'll touch on;

What factors affect film base density.

How film base density interacts with your pictures and your prints.

How to translate an exposure time from a proof to a final print.

Combined with the second and third workshops in the series, this technique also allows you to eliminate test strips from your workflow, saving you time in the darkroom and allowing you to make more prints in a session.

________________________________________________________

Determining Personal Film Speed

When working with negative film, we frequently hear the age old adage "Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights". But how do we ensure we properly expose for the shadows?

In this workshop, you'll learn how to test how film behaves in your camera, with your light meter, in your developing routine, in order to ensure that you get the picture you envisioned.

We'll touch on;

How to meter for the shadows with a variety of reflective metering methods,

How to test a given film's speed in your setup,

How to tweak exposure to get your shadows the way you want them.

This practice provides a pathway to more consistent exposures, saving further time in the darkroom and allowing you to expose with the print in mind, instead of spending valuable darkroom time later trying to dodge back shadows that are underexposed.

________________________________________________________

Determining Personal Development Time

So we can expose for the shadows; what about developing for the highlights? Ansel Adam's Zone System is famous for it's efficacy in mapping the contrast of the scene to the development of the negative, making printing in the darkroom easier and enabling "pre-visualization" of the print when photographing the scene.

In this workshop, we build upon Workshops I and II. You'll learn to determine your personal development time for Normal, Low, and High contrast conditions, building your own Zone system equivalent tailored to your equipment, personal taste, and darkroom practice.

We'll touch on;

The effects of film developer choice + dilution on image formation.

How to test for Normal (N), Low contrast (N-), and High Contrast (N+) development times.

How to assess and meter a scene to understand what kind of development the film will require.

How to unload and re-load a roll midway through.

This practice completes the work begun in workshops I and II, giving not only consistent exposures but consistent prints at a specified time. After completing this workshop, you'll be able to avoid making test strips altogether for simple work-printing, saving hours in the darkroom.

Reminder: Please note that while the Second and Third workshops can be taken independently of one another, both require the first workshop as a hard prerequisite. If you have a scheduling conflict with the first, but would like to make one (or both) of the latter workshops, please contact the instructor.